Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Ain't Too Proud To Beg ...

For crochet help that is!

I finished my Attic 24 Granny Stripe Blanket with only a day to spare until the baby shower - talk about cutting it close! Here is the finished product:

After completing all the rows of granny stripes, I had tons of ends that needed to be woven in before I could start on the border. As I started to weave in the ends, I began to find spots where my work was literally coming apart! In some spots I had to add more yarn to bring the work together. Here is what I mean:

I had to add some black yarn to connect that part with the yellow . And here:

I had to add some yellow yarn to keep this part together, but as you can see, the cream colored stitch at the end doesn't look the same as the rest in that row.

I could not believe this was happening - to make matters worse, after I washed and dried it, there were more areas that needed repair. I certainly hope I was able to fix everything, because I gave this away as a gift and would be mortified if it came apart!

Here is the part where you come in - what am I doing wrong??

What I did on this blanket was after finishing with a color I would fasten off the yarn (to me that is cutting off my yarn and bringing the end through the loop and tightening it). Then I would start again with a new color by making a slip knot and beginning again in the first stitch of the next row. Now that I think about it, though, there is one row of this pattern that has you bring the yarn through the first open space of the previous row, not a stitch, so maybe that is the row I was having troubles on. Since I don't have the blanket anymore, there is no way for me to check. Her instructions said to insert your hook in that space and bring the yarn from the back to the front (which I did by putting the slip knot onto my hook and pulling it through) then starting my chain 3. Maybe this did not secure it enough?

I was so frustrated after finishing this blanket that I swore I would never crochet another blanket again! This is why I usually only do projects that use one color yarn throughout, or a variegated yarn - I don't have these problems.

I sure hope all of my blathering on makes sense!! If anyone can help me figure this out, I would be so grateful.

For those interested, here are the particulars for this blanket:

Pattern: Granny Stripe Blanket by Attic 24 - pattern is available for free on Ravelry.

Go about halfway down the post, and look for the part where the green yarn is joined to the pink circle. Leave at least a 4" tail if you use this method. That way, as your project gets moved around while you're working on it the free end will be less likely to come loose.

I like this method because it catches the yarn end and makes it part of the stitch, and seems more stable than just a free-hanging slip knot.

You can also insert the hook front to back to pull up your loop, when using this method. :)